Concepts of an organism’s biological environment and of niche construction as how organisms alter their environment and that of other organisms now play prominent roles in multiple sub-fields of biology, including ecology, evolution, and development. Some philosophers now use these concepts to understand the dynamics of scientific research. Others note divergences among the concepts of niche and niche construction employed in these biological fields, with implications for their possible conceptual integration. My (Rouse, 2015) account of scientific research as niche constructive and of laws and lawful invariance in scientific practice illuminates these conceptual differences and their implications for integrating those domains of biological research in two ways. First, it accounts for the partial autonomy of these domains and their concepts as characteristic of scientific conceptual development. Second, it provides a more complex understanding of how research domains can be integrated, which shows how those different conceptions of niches and niche construction do not block their appropriate integration. The conclusion situates my account and its application to niche concepts both amid other philosophical uses of niche concepts to understand research environments and as exemplifying my revisionist conception of philosophical naturalism.

生物体的生物环境和生态位构建的概念（生物体如何改变其环境以及其他生物体的环境）现在在生物学的多个子领域（包括生态学、进化和发育）中发挥着重要作用。一些哲学家现在使用这些概念来理解科学研究的动态。其他人注意到这些生物领域中使用的生态位和生态位构建概念之间的分歧，这对它们可能的概念整合产生了影响。我（Rouse，2015）对科学研究作为利基建设性以及科学实践中的规律和合法不变性的解释阐明了这些概念差异及其对以两种方式整合这些生物学研究领域的影响。首先，它将这些领域及其概念的部分自主性解释为科学概念发展的特征。其次，它提供了对如何整合研究领域的更复杂的理解，这表明利基和利基构建的不同概念如何不会阻碍它们的适当整合。结论将我的叙述及其对利基概念的应用置于利基概念的其他哲学用途中以理解研究环境，并例证我的哲学自然主义的修正主义概念。